7 000 bags of rotten rice dumped

2010-02-04 19:07

Freetown - Sierra Leone dock workers began tossing 7 000 contaminated bags of imported rice into a river on Thursday to prevent them from going to markets in of one of the world's poorest states, the standards bureau said.

Surrounded by heavily armed police, hundreds of dock workers tossed the rice into the Mabang river in northern Sierra Leone, 35km from the capital where scores of baby crocodiles surfaced intermittently as the rice hit the water.

"We have taken the rice that far to ensure that rogue marketeers would not reclaim the rice and sell it," said the director of Sierra Leone's standards bureau, James Dumbuya.

The rice, which was brought into the country by a Lebanese importer from Vietnam in December last year, was "certified as rotten and unfit for consumption by four health watchdog organisations including the Consumer Protection Agency and the Civil Society," Dumbuya said.